Carbon nanotubes electrodes as intrinsic conductors for organic and printed electronic applications

碳纳米管由于其高载流子迁移率、合成简单和溶液可加工性而成为最有前途的电子材料之一。这些材料有望在有机光电和光伏器件、传感器和场效应晶体管中用作活性层等一系列潜在应用。然而，仍然需要为这些材料开发合适的加工方法，以获得实现其独特性能所需的形态;特别是对于大规模应用。因此，本研究计划的重点是开发生产薄而均匀的碳纳米管片的方法，这些碳纳米管片表现出最大的光学折射率和电导率。到目前为止，该行业依赖于单一的透明导体，氧化铟锡（ITO），一种透明的导电氧化物，用于大多数商业应用。虽然ITO已经适用于现有技术，但已被证明不太适合用于新兴的有机光电子领域。我们的团队最近开发了一种简单的室温沉积技术来制造薄而灵活的碳纳米管片，表现出优异的光学性能和导电性。这些片已被用来显示第一次，碳纳米管电极可用作高性能小分子OLED的空穴注入阳极。这些结果令人信服地表明，新型碳纳米管阳极是透明导电氧化物的可行替代品。我们将进一步探索CNT片材制造工艺，使其可扩展并适用于印刷SS电子产品。一个强大的化学方法，以及在CNT片的导电性和透明度的增加将开发SS设备制造。我们相信这种方法将产生SS器件，其表现出优于传统ITO基器件的上级性能。它还将提供可用于其他电子应用的新功能材料。鉴于透明导体在从触摸屏和平板显示器到光伏电池的光电设备中的普遍使用，当前的提议对未来消费电子的发展具有广泛的影响。

Carbon nanotubes are emerging amongst the most promising electronic materials due to their high carrier mobilities, simple synthesis and solution processability. These materials promise a range of potential applications such as active layers in organic optoelectronic and photovoltaic devices, sensors, and field-effect transistors. However, there is still a need to develop suitable processing methods for these materials to obtain the necessary morphologies for realizing their unique properties; especially for large-scale applications. This research proposal thus focuses on developing methods for producing thin and uniform carbon nanotube sheets exhibiting maximal optical transparencies and electrical conductivities. Up to now, the industry has relied on a single transparent conductor, indium tin oxide (ITO) a transparent conducting oxide, for most commercial applications. While ITO has been suitable for existing technologies it was proven to be less than ideal for use in the emerging field of organic optoelectronics. Our team has recently developed a simple room temperature deposition technique to fabricate thin and flexible carbon nanotubes sheets exhibiting excellent optical transparencies and electrical conductivities. These sheets have been used to show for the first time that CNT electrodes can be used as hole injecting anodes for high performance small molecule OLEDs. These results convincingly demonstrate that novel carbon nanotube anodes are a viable alternative to transparent conducting oxides. We will explore further the CNT sheet fabrication process to make it scalable and well adapted for printing SS electronics. A robust chemical approach together with an increase in the CNT sheet conductivity and transparency will be developed for SS device fabrication. We believe this approach will produce SS devices exhibiting performances superior to traditional ITO based devices. It will also provide new functional materials that could be useful for other electronic applications. Given the ubiquitous use of transparent conductors in optoelectronic appliances, from touch-screens and flat panel displays to photovoltaic cells, the current proposal has wide ranging impact on the development of future consumer electronics.